


Open up your door

by fengirl88



Category: due South
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV Multiple, Seasonal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 09:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16115888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: In the months following Fraser's loss and recovery of his memory, his relationship with Ray Vecchio changes.





	1. Fraser

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mekare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mekare/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I'd walk through the snow barefoot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15731856) by [mekare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mekare/pseuds/mekare). 



> A huge thank you to mekare for her lovely and inspiring art; to theicescholar for helping me find my way into chapter 2; to Kate_Lear, Owl_by_Night and Ride_Forever for their encouragement and excellent beta suggestions, and to Ride_Forever in particular for advice about all things Chicago and about the epilogue.

It was late spring when he lost his memory, the trees outside Clifford’s house just coming into new leaf. It’s summer now, but it doesn’t feel like it in Chicago. Back home in Inuvik it would still be light outside. Fraser misses that, misses the pitiless clarity of that unending sunshine. Misses being able to go out and chop wood when he can’t sleep, like tonight. He hasn’t slept well since the heatwave began, and the thoughts that come when he can’t sleep are hard to bear. 

Losing his memory and getting it back cracked something open in him that he doesn’t know how to close. Seeing his life as if it was a stranger’s.

“I live like this?” he’d asked Ray, staring at the bleak emptiness of his apartment. “Am I being punished?”

He thinks about the cabin he and Ray were going to rebuild, and how that never happened because of the plane crash that left Fraser blind and paralyzed. At the time he’d been grateful for what that showed him of Ray: his loyalty, his care, his refusal to be defeated or to abandon Fraser. He had known these things before, but after what had happened with Victoria he couldn’t take them for granted. That Ray could not only forgive him for what he’d done, but risk everything for Fraser all over again, moved him more deeply than he could say. Still, he can’t help wishing they’d got a chance to rebuild the cabin.

Daydreaming about it is fruitless, and he chides himself for it, but he can’t resist. Not tonight, when the sticky heat of the city will make sleep an impossibility till the cooler hours just before dawn. He takes up his sketchbook and a pencil.

He can see so clearly what the cabin would look like. The bookshelves full of his favourite books of poetry and adventure, somehow magically preserved from the ashes, along with some newer volumes, not his. A rocking-chair like his grandmother’s. A deep leather armchair to sink into. The sofa, big enough for two to sprawl out on together in comfort, a brightly coloured crocheted blanket thrown over the back. The deep red of the hearthrug. Two mugs of hot chocolate keeping warm by the stove. Dark outside because it’s winter, but the room glows with firelight and candles, soft warm light.

Drawing what’s in his head helps sometimes to diminish the longing for what he can’t have. Not this time, though.

He didn’t even know he wanted it, until he lost his memory and got it back. He’d got so used to being alone that he didn’t feel it any more. For a long time he thought Dief would be his only companion, and that that would be enough.

It isn’t enough any more.

There were women who wanted him. Still are. But the person they want is his outside self, not his inside one. They don’t know him, they just like the way he looks.

Ray knows him. Ray thinks he’s the most irritating man he’s ever met, but even though he grumbles ferociously and persistently about Fraser he’s always there for him. Ray sees his inside self. Most of it. Not all, any more.

_“Oh Benny, I could just kiss you!”_

_“I thought we were just friends, Ray.”_

_“Oh, we are.”_

There’s a part of himself that Fraser keeps carefully hidden now, where not even Ray can find it. Because if Ray saw that, it would make him uncomfortable. Ray likes women. He’s been married. He’s been in love with other women. Pursued them. He’s never shown the slightest flicker of interest in another man. And Ray is a police officer, in an organization that doesn’t take kindly to differences from the norm. If he knew how Fraser felt about him – knew how often Fraser’s thoughts stray to him when he’s alone in his apartment at night. Knew the images that come unbidden to Fraser’s mind –

Fraser can’t even finish that sentence.

Chicago without Ray would be unbearable. But increasingly he begins to fear that Canada – _home_ – without Ray would give him no comfort. That even amongst his own people and familiar surroundings he would still feel lost. That it is too late to guard against giving his heart away, because it’s already gone.

Sometimes he wishes his memory had stayed lost.

Fraser closes the sketchbook and puts it aside, picks up a book and slumps on the floor by the bed. He turns the pages at random, skimming over the words, till two lines catch his eye.

_But oh, whate’er the sky-led seasons mar,_   
_Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams_

The shock of the words goes through him like a physical blow. Housman’s version of Horace’s “Diffugere nives”. He catches his breath and goes back to the previous verse. 

_Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of spring_   
_Treads summer sure to die, for hard on hers_   
_Comes autumn with his apples scattering;_   
_Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs._

_But oh, whate'er the sky-led seasons mar,_   
_Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams;_   
_Come we where Tullus and where Ancus are_   
_And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams._

There’s a cruelty in it, the passage of the seasons. The indifference to human life, to what is not renewed: the losses of death, which Fraser knows only too well. And the other losses, the ones Housman knows all about but tells only in part. 

_Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,_   
_Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;_   
_And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chain_   
_The love of comrades cannot take away._

Ray Vecchio is a good man, a good friend and colleague. He loves his family and his friends deeply, though he covers it with bluster some of the time. He is loyal to the people he cares about. He doesn’t let many people in close, the way he has with Fraser. But _the love of comrades_ is not a phrase he’d ever use, and if he did he wouldn’t mean what Housman meant by it. What Fraser means. Death is not the only thing that bars a man from the love of comrades.

So this is the bargain Fraser makes with himself: to behave as if nothing has happened, and not to show what he’s carrying around inside him. To make do with so much less than what he wants. He is used to self-discipline, to self-denial. Unlike Diefenbaker, who acts entirely on impulse. Sometimes Fraser envies the fierce simplicity and directness of the wolf’s appetites.

He’s survived on starvation rations, and he can do so again. He doesn’t let himself dwell on what happens if you do that for too long. It’s only a metaphor, after all. As Shakespeare says, men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

And friendship is not starvation. It’s ungrateful to think in those terms. Melodramatic.

A siren goes screaming past in the dark. Another life broken, torn apart or cut short. So many times he’s come close enough to death to look it in the face. There must be a reason he’s still here; and if there isn’t, he’ll just have to make one. To make what he has be enough.

Diefenbaker seems to recognize this lowness as something more than Fraser’s usual melancholy, because he doesn’t scold him about it for once. Instead he lays his head on Fraser’s knee and lets Fraser push his fingers into Dief’s soft fur, feel the warmth of another life under his hand.


	2. Ray

Ray likes this time of year, the change from summer to fall. The way the air smells different, feels crisper and clearer. The hot sweet cider they serve in that one coffee shop near the precinct. The fall colors of the leaves and flowers, chrysanthemums and dahlias and asters. Pop said it was sissy for a boy to like flowers, so Ray learned not to talk about it, but noticing them still gives him a kick. 

One of the things he likes about Fraser is that he gets all science-y and excited about stuff like the change in the leaves, so Ray doesn’t feel embarrassed about liking it. He’d expected Benny to do his autumn leaves talk after they’d wrapped that case that ended with a chase through the Apple Fest at Lincoln Square, but it didn’t happen. Huh.

Ray stares at Fraser’s hat on the dashboard of the Riv. Benny said he’d be five minutes, needed to pick something up from the Consulate, and it’s been, what? Ray looks at his watch: twenty-three minutes. Some curling-related emergency, or the Dragon Lady’s got him polishing the silver again. Ray’ll give it till the half hour and then go pound on the door and demand to see the body.

It’s quiet in here. No sound but Dief’s breathing from the back seat where he’s probably shedding fur. Most days, Ray can’t hear himself think for all the noise around him – his family, the bullpen, the streets. Or Fraser telling his endless Inuit stories.

Yeah, Fraser. Something’s up with Fraser. Ray doesn’t know what it is, but there’s definitely something wrong.

Can a bang on the head change someone’s personality? It took Ray a while to realize things weren’t back to normal even after Benny got his memory back. Takes a hell of a lot to crack the Mountie – even being blind didn’t do it when they were stranded after that plane crash. But it looks like the bang on the head did it somehow. Like Benny got broken and put himself back together again wrong. 

Fraser still does all that Mountie stuff but with the dial turned up to 11. It’s like it’s a part he’s acting and he doesn’t know when to stop. He’s so polite it makes Ray’s teeth ache. His Inuit stories are even longer and more convoluted than before, which Ray would have told you was impossible. He jumps off higher buildings and onto faster-moving vehicles like he’s got a death wish. _More_ of a death wish. He sniffs and licks stuff Ray doesn’t want to think about, ever. He does all the things he used to do, except maybe the leaf talk and –

He doesn’t touch Ray any more. Huh.

He always used to touch Ray, casual pats and shoves. Lean in too close, like he didn’t know the meaning of personal space. Ray kind of liked it. And Benny’s stopped doing it, and it’s taken Ray _weeks_ to notice, what with all the politeness and the Inuit stories and the building-jumping and the licking. But yeah, there’s something missing. 

Fraser’s the most guarded person Ray ever met, but he let his guard down with Ray. Let Ray see him goofy and happy and vulnerable and lost. Now – yeah. Now he’s keeping Ray at a distance, the way he does with everyone else. After all they’ve been through, it’s enough to make Ray mad. The partnership still works, but there’s a hitch in the flow of it.

He asked Welsh about it, which was a mistake. 

“Fraser seem any different to you lately?” 

“No,” Welsh said wearily. He looked like he should have matchsticks to prop his eyes open, like something out of Looney Tunes. “Get back to work, Vecchio.” 

Yeah, should have known better than that. Ray wasn’t going to make a fool of himself by conducting a survey in the bullpen. Or asking Frannie. He’s a detective. He can work this out by himself. 

So here he is, sitting in the Riv and staring at Fraser’s hat, like maybe it has the answer. Diefenbaker whuffles something at him from the back seat. Ray swivels round and gives him a piercing look.

“You know what’s eating Benny? There’s something up with him, right?”

It’s kind of pathetic to be talking to a wolf about what’s wrong with your partner, never mind a deaf wolf. Even more pathetic, this isn’t anywhere near the craziest thing he’s done since he met Fraser.

Dief whines and mutters and growls, but since Ray never got the hang of wolfspeak that’s not a whole lot of use. Still, he reckons Dief knows there’s _something_ going on with Fraser.

Right on cue, the man himself finally comes out of the Consulate, opens the Riv’s passenger door and gets in.

“Hey Benny, what took you so long? You said five minutes.”

Fraser grimaces. “Turnbull needed a hand with the blowtorch for the crème brûlée.”

Ray rolls his eyes. “Only in Canada.”

“Actually, Ray, culinary history suggests that crème brûlée originated in –”

“Skip it,” Ray says. “What’s going on with you?”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to, Ray.”

_The hell you don’t_ , Ray thinks. “Is something bothering you?”

“ _Bothering me_ – that was a stoplight, Ray.”

Ray sighs. This is going every bit as well as he thought it would. Fraser is the original clam if he doesn’t want to tell you something. And what’s Ray going to say to him: _you didn’t do the leaf talk yet and you stopped touching me_? Right, because that’s not going to sound weird or creepy at all.

“Forget it, Benny,” he says. “I’ll drive you home.”

*~*~*

Ray sits in the diner, staring into his cup of coffee. It doesn’t have any more to say for itself than Fraser’s hat did. He should go home, but dealing with his family is more than he can stand right now, with this thing with Benny bugging him the way it is.

Darlene’s got the radio on, some indie pop station he wouldn’t have figured she’d go for. Never can tell about people. The singer’s voice is vaguely familiar, but he’s never heard this song before. _When the sun goes down and darkness falls, the blanket of winter leaves no light at all. You search for a shelter to calm the storm, shaking with an instinct just to stay warm_. Makes him think about Fraser’s cabin, up in the far northwest. Ray’s never understood what he sees in the place. No-one in their right minds would want to live in a cabin with no central heating or indoor plumbing in the middle of nowhere, but Benny is his own kind of crazy. 

Maybe Fraser’s homesick. Maybe he wants to go back to Canada. Maybe he’s planning to move back up there and doesn’t know how to tell Ray. 

The thought of it makes a knot in Ray’s stomach. He’s got used to having the guy around, since that first day at the diner when he found Fraser reading his father’s journal and took him home to meet the family. If Fraser is planning to move back up north, Ray’s going to miss him like hell. 

But he misses him _now_ , as crazy as that sounds. Because he's not Fraser any more, not Benny. He's keeping something from Ray.

The more he listens to the song, the more it makes him think of Fraser: _Stirring up the secrets that lie frozen within. / The ice will haunt you, it lays so deep / Locking up inside you the dreams that you keep_. The singer gives a sort of howl, like a wolf almost, and that's it: Ray's had it with not knowing what the hell is going on. He pushes away his half-drunk cup of coffee, pays the check and calls Ma to tell her he won't be home to dinner, he's got to go see Fraser about something.

The song’s chorus echoes in his head all the way to Racine: _I'd walk through the snow barefoot if you'd open up your door_. He takes the stairs to Fraser's apartment like he's chasing down a suspect, his heart racing, and hammers on the door.

“Open up, Benny, it’s me.”

Footsteps in the hall, and a long pause. Ray can feel Fraser looking at him through the spyhole. Eventually the door opens, and Fraser says “Come in, Ray.”

There’s a scent of apples in the apartment, a paper bag of them spilling onto the kitchen counter. Fraser’s still in his uniform pants, but he’s shed his jacket. He has a half-eaten apple in his hand, and he looks at it like he can’t decide whether to finish it or put it down.

“Hey, don’t let me stop you,” Ray says.

“I went back to the Apple Fest yesterday,” Fraser says. 

Went back to apologize for knocking over the stalls, knowing him. All the way across town. He looks embarrassed, which is stupid. Like he’s been caught out doing something wrong. Like even buying a bag of apples is an indulgence he shouldn’t allow himself. 

Ray watches him eat the rest of the apple. Strong white teeth, and that one crooked one that reminds you he’s human after all. He flushes under Ray’s scrutiny.

“Ma says to tell you you’re invited for dinner on Monday,” Ray says. “It’s Canadian Thanksgiving, right?”

“Oh.”

Ray doesn’t know how to read that one, though at least it wasn’t an “Ah.”

“You got plans already?”

“No,” Fraser admits. “I appreciate the invitation very much, of course. It’s kind of her.”

“Kind, hell,” Ray says. “You’re like family, Benny.”

Wrong thing to say. Fraser's face gets that shut down look, blank as a wall. Forget walking through the snow barefoot, this is walking on ice.

“What did I say?”

“Nothing,” Fraser says. “It’s nothing, Ray.”

“The hell it is. You’re holding out on me, Benny. I know there’s something wrong and you won’t let me help –”

“You can’t,” Fraser says flatly.

“Well no, I can’t because you won’t even tell me what it is!” Ray’s fists are clenched. He unclenches them again and breathes deeply.

“It’s nothing,” Fraser says again.

Ray waits.

“You don’t want to know.”

Ray’s not even going to dignify that with an answer.

"I don't know how," Fraser says finally.

Dief snorts and whuffles something that's obviously sarcastic.

" _He_ knows," Ray says, gesturing irritably. "If I could speak wolf, I'd have got the dope on you an hour ago."

Fraser shoots Dief a betrayed look. If a wolf could shrug, Dief shrugs.

“I’ll thank you not to interfere, Diefenbaker,” Fraser says coldly.

Great. Mountie in a snit. Just what this evening needs to top it off.

Dief barks and lurches toward Ray, knocking against Fraser’s dad’s old trunk.

“Diefenbaker!” Fraser snaps.

Ray bends down to pick up what Dief knocked off the trunk: a large notebook, splayed open at his feet. He's about to hand it back to Fraser, but his eye is caught by the pencil drawing on the page. 

He recognizes the cabin right away, though it looks different from when he was there. Warmer. Cozy as all get out, in fact, with the two mugs steaming by the stove and the glow of the firelight and candles. A rocking-chair, an armchair, a big sofa that’d be comfortable to curl up on. And ignoring all of these and sitting on the hearthrug looking very much at home, one Ray Vecchio. Not wearing a neck brace, the way he was back then, and handsomer than in real life, which Ray is not about to quarrel with, thank you Benny. 

He looks from the sketch to Fraser. Who is blushing like crazy.

_Oh._

Ray may have been slow on the uptake but he thinks he’s finally getting it now. 

_“Oh Benny, I could just kiss you!”_

_“I thought we were just friends, Ray.”_

Like he said to Benny that time, guys aren’t any good at talking about this. But yeah, a picture paints a thousand words. Especially when it’s one of Fraser’s.

“You trust me, Benny?”

Fraser pauses, but then says “Implicitly, Ray.”

“Then trust me on this, OK?”

“OK,” Fraser says, so quiet it’s almost a whisper. He doesn’t meet Ray’s eye.

Ray looks again at the sketch. “This here – this is something you want, right?”

Fraser says nothing. Still blushing the color of his uniform jacket and looking at the floor.

“Look at me, Benny,” Ray says, as calmly as he can so as not to scare him away.

Fraser raises his head, and there’s such longing in his eyes that Ray wonders how he could have missed it. And this is not anything he’d imagined having in his life, imagined wanting with another guy. But this is Benny, and Ray loves him, even if he is the most irritating man in the world. So he moves closer and puts his arms around Fraser and kisses him on the cheek, very gently, and Fraser starts to _shake_. 

“It’s OK,” Ray says. “It’s OK, Benny, I’ve got you.” 

He hugs Fraser harder and kisses him on the mouth. Fraser moans and kisses him back like he’s starving, like he’s been dying to do this for months, which, yeah, get with the program, Vecchio. Ray pushes his hands into Fraser’s hair, yes, soft warm good. Fraser’s hands are clumsy and hot against Ray’s neck, stroking his back and his ass, Jesus. His cock is hard against Ray’s thigh. Ray’s getting hard himself, dizzy and panting, Fraser’s hands all over him.

_So, what, you’re a faggot now?_ Pop’s voice jeers in his head.

_Shut the fuck up, Pop, you’re dead_ , Ray tells him. _Who the hell cares what you think anyway?_

He pulls Fraser closer and kisses him again, fierce and strong and sweet like apples.


	3. Coda: Diefenbaker

SNOW! Diefenbaker can smell it.  Not strong like in the home-place, always more snow there, but snow.  First snow this winter.  They should be outside in the snow, but his packmates Fraser and Ray are busy hugging again.  They hug a lot, even when they're not mating. 

The first time Fraser and Ray mated, Fraser hugged and hugged Diefenbaker after.  Made Diefenbaker's fur wet with Fraser's eye-water, but not the sad smell eye-water.  Fraser kept saying _good, good Dief_ and hugging him tight. 

Ray gave Diefenbaker doughnuts the day after that, and Fraser let him.

Ray’s-mother pets Dief and gives him roast birdmeat, like aquilgiq but more. 

They are a pack now, Fraser and Diefenbaker and Ray. Diefenbaker watched Ray hard for a long time to make sure he wasn’t like Fraser’s last mate, the female. The bad mate who hurt Fraser, tried to kill Diefenbaker. 

Ray is a good mate and Fraser is happy. When they’re not mating, or hugging, or chasing cars and bad humans, or eating pizza and watching the light-box, they talk about the home-place. Fraser makes more of his thought-marks about the home-place and shows them to Ray, and Ray hugs him and says _Soon_.


End file.
